Obamacare | The Government's Takeover of Health Care

Survey Shows Obamacare Causing Premiums to Reach Highest in Years

When the government takes over nearly 20% of the economy, there is going to be bad news. Obamacare does just that and Americans are already feeling the pain. For many, health care premiums have skyrocketed, while others have simply lost their health insurance courtesy of Obamacare. In a recent survey of health insurance brokers, Obamacare has caused premiums to see their largest increase yet.

Americans have recently been hit with some of the largest premium increases in years, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of insurance brokers.

The investment bank’s April survey of 148 brokers found that this quarter, the average premium increase for customers renewing an insurance plan is 12 percent in the small group market and 11 percent in the individual market, according to Forbes’ Scott Gottlieb.

The hikes — the largest in the past three years, according to Morgan Stanley’s quarterly reports — are “largely due to changes under the [Affordable Care Act],” analysts concluded. Rates have been growing increasingly fast throughout all of 2013, after a period of drops in 2012.

While insurers were hiking premiums since 2012 by smaller amounts, the lead-up to the Obamacare’s launch has seen the average rate at which premiums are growing fourfold.

The small group market saw a jump from a growth rate of close to 3 percent during Morgan Stanley’s September 2013 survey to just above 6 percent three months later in December — the month before a surge of Obamacare regulations hit insurance companies.

Over the next three months, the rate doubled again to the current average small growth premium growth rate of 12 percent.

Individual policies saw a much starker jump after the Obamacare exchanges launched, in anticipation of the health care law going live in 2014. Morgan Stanley’s September 2013 survey, like the previous three quarters, found a fairly constant growth rate around 2 percent — but in December, the rate had shot up to above 9 percent.